Four Obra units trip; power crisis deepens

THE PREVAILING Statewide acute power crisis further deepened on Wednesday after four units of the Obra thermal powerhouse tripped once again. This reduced the State?s power generation to just 1800 MW, including 175 MW of hydropower.

THE PREVAILING Statewide acute power crisis further deepened on Wednesday after four units of the Obra thermal powerhouse tripped once again. This reduced the State’s power generation to just 1800 MW, including 175 MW of hydropower.

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The demand-supply gap was as wide as 2500 MW around 4 pm. The gap became even wider during the peak hours in the evening. A senior UPPCL officer termed the condition as “quite serious”. The Control Room at Shakti Bhawan here was flooded with calls from power staff in various districts, demanding supply as they were being attacked by the public.

Though the power scenario has been quite grim for the last many days, it turned even worse on Wednesday after machine nos 7, 8, 11 and 12 stopped generating power due to a technical fault.

Their capacity ranged from 100-200 MW.

Some of these units had gone out of order a few days ago as well, but had become functional again.  Despite importing over 2500 MW of electricity from the Centre, the UPPCL had to impose indiscriminate power cuts throughout the State, so that the grid did not collapse. The Northern grid continued to be under great stress, as its frequency hovered around the dangerous zone of 48 hertz.

Sources said while small towns and villages were in the dark during the night, big towns faced prolonged power cuts. Industries, too, were deprived of electricity at night.